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User blog:Pinkguy the b0ss/Super Mario Advance Review
What's up my Shreks, it's professional street nibba DiamondMinerStudios again. Oh boy. Take a guess as to what I'm doing now? If you didn't read the title or see the image, today I'm talking about Super Mario Advance for the GBA, a remake of the SNES version of Super Mario Bros. 2. It also happens to be the only version of this game I've beaten so far. Wow I'm good at games. Anyway, in this review, I want to answer the same two questions as all of these other GBA remakes: How does this game compare to what I've played in the NES and SNES versions so far, and how well does it stand on its own? Let's find out.... dammit I say that in every one of these reviews. Story This game has a pretty simple story, as is usual for the Mario series. In this game, Mario, Luigi, Princess Peach, and Toad discover a stairway while on a picnic. Upon entering, they're transported to to magical kingdom of Subcon, which has been cursed by Wart, the evil frog tyrant who took over the kingdom. Mario and friends then set out to defeat Wart and save Subcon. It's a fairly simple story and it gets the job done, but there's one massive thing wrong with it. However, since I don't want to get extremely negative right out of the gate, I'll save this for later. For now, let's discuss the graphics. Graphics This game, just like the other GBA remakes of classic NES and SNES games, has visuals that aren't as good as the SNES version but are nonetheless good in their own right. The visuals in this game are also far superior to the relatively ugly NES version due to the vastly greater color pallette of the GBA compared to the NES. Soundtrack The soundtrack of this game is fantastic. Out of all the versions of this game, Mario Advance definitely has my favorite rendition of it. The NES version's was good, and surprisingly the SNES version's didn't sound that great. The GBA version, on the other hand, has the catchiest and most memorable rendition of the OST, with the overworld theme, underground theme, and the boss defeated fanfare being standouts. Gameplay Overall, this game has pretty solid gameplay. One interesting addition is that it features four different playable characters. Mario is the most balanced, having average jump height, speed, and strength, Luigi has a floatier jump and average strength and speed, Toad is fast, can pick things up faster with his increased strength, but has short jumps, and Peach, while slow and weak, has an extremely useful float ability that can make trickier platforming a little easier to deal with. This character system is pretty good and adds some depth to the game. Another great addition, or rather ommission, is the removal of the level timer, something every other 2D Mario game has. This is something I appreciate and I wonder why other 2D Mario games didn't do this. However, while this game is great, I do have a several major issues with it. One has to do with the characters. While the system is good, it's also flawed. Mario and Peach are good to play as. However, Luigi is practically unplayable because his jump is way too floaty, making him far too difficult to control. Toad has the complete opposite problem - his jump is nerfed to the point that he's also completely useless. Peach also takes way too long to pick things up. The most common and significant recurring problem I encountered was with the controls and physics. The controls feel a bit too stiff for my tastes. Multiple times throughout this game, there were moments where I fell into bottomless pits because the stiff controls prevented me from correcting a mistake properly. However, this is small potatoes compared to the awful physics. In a nutshell, they're so slippery that it feels like you're on ice. All of the damn time, whenever the game required precise platforming (which is often), I would end up slipping off of the platform. This could either simply mean falling down to a lower platform.... or the much more common outcome of falling straight into a bottomless pit. This happened far too often, and pissed me off so much that I quit multiple times. Even after beating the game, I could never get used to this. However, this isn't the only issue. It's now time to discuss this game's difficulty. Difficulty Before getting into the issues, though, I'll discuss the improvements from the other versions. For one, the save feature is actually meaningful. Whereas in the SNES version it could only save up to the start of a world and erased your lives when you save and quit, and how you only got three lives and two continues (with three lives per continue) in the NES version, this version saves both your lives and the level you were last on. This makes the game much more accessible for new players than the console versions ever were. In addition, health is made far easier to get. In the console versions, a heart would only appear on a blue moon on Friday the 13th after winning the Mega Millions jackpot. On the GBA, hearts are plastered around the levels and you can get them by killing two enemies with one thrown object, throwing giant shy guys, and killing enemies with a giant shell. Needless to say, this is also a major improvement over the borderline unfair difficulty balancing of the NES and SNES versions. Still, there are plenty of flaws to go around. A very big problem with this game is the camera. The low vertical resolution of the GBA means that you can't see very far above you. This wouldn't be much of a problem if the game didn't suffer from what the AVGN calls "air suspension shit lift." In order to make the screen scroll vertically, you have to go very close to the top or bottom of the screen and wait for it to move up or down instead of it smoothly scrolling. In addition, you have to go close to the left or right edge of the screen to make the camera pan so you can see in that direction. However, surely the designers would revise the existing enemy placement to reflect these limitations, right? Well, no, they didn't. There were plenty of instances where I was carefully making my way up a vertical shaft, only to have an enemy I couldn't see drop onto me from the top of the screen. In addition, there were many times when I walked left to grab something, and then when I turned around, the camera didn't automatically pan like the other 2D Mario games. When I walked right, I got ambushed by enemies I couldn't see. The problem that really exacerbates these camera issues is the often bullshit enemy placement. As I said before, enemies can often drop onto your head with no warning. Sometimes, you have to go up, but when you try to, an enemy will suddenly ambush you from offscreen. The same thing can also happen horizontally as well due to the somewhat dysfunctional camera panning. This is particularly pronounced in level 3-3, 5-2, 7-1, and 7-2. These levels feature sections with said terrible enemy placement, and led to unfair death after unfair death. The slippery and inaccurate controls also added to the impact of these problems. Ok, ok. While these issues are pretty big, surely the level design is good enough to support the game? Well, yeah. For the most part, the levels in this game are fun to play and well-designed. The first three worlds start out very strong, featuring insanely fun stages. In addition, the later levels are also fairly enjoyable, and overall the game has a high level of challenge, making it very engaging. One small problem becomes how long some of the levels can be, but this doesn't ruin the game at all. It's also the hardest Mario game I've beaten thus far, and one of the hardest games I've ever beaten. Unfortunately, this aspect of the game is also flawed. There's a point in this game where the levels drastically fall off in quality. After 3-2, the game nosedives in quality with 3-3, which features awful enemy placement and obnoxious precision platforming. This has to be the worst it gets, though, right? It's a Mario game, so the rest of the game has to be good, right? Well, no. World 4 is even worse than 3-3. For one, it's an ice world, meaning slippery physics on top of the already slippery controls. These have to be some of the worst ice physics I've ever dealt with in a sidescroller. You literally keep sliding almost infintely if you simply let go of the D-pad, and turning around makes you slip all over the place. 4-1 and 4-2 also feature enemy placement not optimized for the camera on top of these atrocious ice physics, making these levels incredibly obnoxious and not fun at all. 4-3 is actually not a terrible level though, and actually features a clever section where you have to ride Birdo's egg to a platform in the distance. This renewed my hope that the next world would improve in quality. However, that all went out the window once I started playing World 5. 5-1 isn't a terrible stage, but it isn't particularly great either. It can be somewhat annoying with its do-or-die platforming. However, this game suddenly goes off the cliff and down to rock bottom with the very next stage : 5-2. Where do I even begin? For one, the platforming is built completely against the control scheme you have, featuring precise jumps that have to be made with perfect accuracy as the platforms are one either one block wide or are enemies you have to jump on. This makes Peach the only character that can beat this level, and even then, it's still barely playable as her. Why? The fucking ATROCIOUS enemy placement. You have to make several jumps with enemies that get in your way, making it next to impossible to avoid them without taking a hit. One spot in particular has a fire spitting plant with two bug enemies climbing on trees on both sides of it. When I first reached this section, I stopped and stared, utterly shocked at what my eyes were seeing. I knew the only way to get over this part was to use Peach's glide. However, in this one part, the fucking thing decided not to work. When I clearly pressed the button. After this, I finally got lucky and the damned glide decided it wanted to work. I then got surprise motherfucker'd by some enemies from offscreen, and then reached the terrible vine climbing section. This part also has horrendous enemy placement, with those awful enemies that can shoot at you. This part is not fun, but it's easily the best part of the level. After this section, I got to the absolute WORST part of the entire level. In this part, you have to drop down a large vertical shaft.... filled to the brim with surprise spikes. Again, the screen only scrolls once you hit the bottom of the screen, so you have to know where the spikes are in order to avoid them. If you don't, the screen will lock when it scrolls, and if you're above a few spikes, there's often nothing you can do about it. If by some miracle you get past this part, these dickish designers had the audacity, the NERVE, to put an unforseeable bottomless pit at the bottom of the shaft, which is stupidly easy to fall into. If you fall in, you have to do the atrocious spike section all over again. Thankfully, I actually managed to make it past this hellhole and reach the boss fight against Birdo. This is easily one of the worst boss fights in this entire game. You're given no room to avoid Birdo's projectiles as the platform you're on is very narrow and suspended over a bottomless pit. In addition, there's an enemy in the way as well, making it even easier to take a hit. You may think you can just go to the other side of Birdo, but you can't, as there's a platform above that side you'll go onto when you try to jump onto Birdo's eggs to attack her. You'll have to throw the jumping fish enemy at her, which can leave you open to attack when you try to pick it up. Of all the levels in this game, this one took me the longest to complete by far. Whether it be the awful enemy placement of the first quarter, the obnoxious vine climbing section, the horrendous, fucking ABOMINABLE spike section, and the terrible boss, I finally beat this garbage. After over an hour of utter TORTURE, all of the slipping off platforms, being blindsided by enemies and spikes, having the basic mechanics fail to work for no discernable reason, and through the venemous storm of cursing and shouting I unleashed, I finally got through this absolute abomination of a level. And after it, I felt no satisfaction, but rather relief that I'd never have to play this awful level again. It was a hollow victory, but I finally did it. Unfortunately, 5-3 doesn't get much better. It features the same annoying enemy placement and terribly optimized platforming from 5-2, but it still doesn't reach the shit factor of that level. The boss fight, however, does. The whole thing is suspended over a bottomless pit, and comes after a brutally difficult section where you have to fly on a magic carpet over a massive bottomless pit. This part also has horrible enemy placement and overly precise platforming with the aformentioned slippery controls. The Birdo boss is easy to die to, and you have to do this horrible platforming section over again if you do. The world boss, Clawgrip, is also bad in that avoiding his attacks is one of the most unfair things in a Mario game. You have to pick up the boulders he throws and throw them at him, but doing this without getting hit yourself is a feat and a half. After suffering through all of this terrible design in World 5, I felt like a grilled cheese sandwich. I was so drained that I didn't touch this game again for a whole day. It was that terrible. In that time, I managed to beat Super Mario World without dying once and beat Super Mario Land 2 in one play session for the first time. I had a great time with these games as usual, so the fact that a world from a game in the same series got THIS bad was an insult. Thankfully, the quality of the game drastically improves with World 6. It's not perfect, as 6-1 is fairly annoying since it's a guessing game to find a key in one of many vases in an area at the beginning of the level. However, besides that, World 6 doesn't have any other major design flaws. World 7, the final world, isn't as good as World 6, but still not as horrible as 3-3, 4-1, 4-2, 5-2, and 5-3. 7-1 does have bad enemy placement in one of its sections, but it's overall not a bad level. 7-2 is considerably worse, with annoying conveyor belts and more bad enemy placement. However, it never reaches the crap factor of Worlds 4 and 5. So yeah, while most of the levels are good, a handful are dreadfully bad and insufferably terrible to play. The bosses, on the other hand, are pretty good. Besides the bosses of 5-2 and 5-3, they're all enjoyable if a bit on the easy side. The final boss against Wart in particular is fun and tense to fight, and the boss of 3-3, Robirdo, is probably the best boss in the game and I enjoyed it a lot. Even with all of the flaws this game has, I still found most of it to be fun to play. Conclusion In the end, what more can I really say? This is one of the better GBA games. Despite how horrible some of the levels are, the often bad and unfair enemy placement, somewhat bad camera optimization, and slippery and imprecise controls, I still found it to be an enjoyable game. However, if we're talking 2D Mario, it's still nowhere near as good as Super Mario World, Super Mario Bros. 3, Super Mario Land, Super Mario Land 2, the original Super Mario Bros., and the other Super Mario Advance games. However, it is better than New Super Mario Bros. and New Super Mario Bros. Wii, mostly because this game's frustrating moments are at least engaging. Those games are fairly bland and their frustrating moments are often more boring. Now to answer the two questions I posed at the start of this review. First, how does this game compare to the other versions? This game is far superior to those with is vastly better soundtrack and massively improved difficulty balancing. I can't imagine how horrible 5-2 is in those versions and just thinking about it makes me shudder. Second, how does this game stand on its own? As I've already stated, Super Mario Advance is great. If you've never played Super Mario Bros. 2 before, I would say play this version. As for what's next, I'm once again unsure. It could be Spyro the Dragon, any of the three Crash Bandicoot games, Super Mario All-Stars, Super Mario Land, Pac-Man World, Pac-Man World 2, Donkey Kong Country Returns 3D, any of the first three Ratchet & Clank games, Sonic Mega Collection, or Earthworm Jim. Whatever comes next, I'll see all you next time. Category:Blog posts